Saturday July 16, 2016

The administration is investing $400M toward the testing and refinement of different technologies and software algorithms for next-generation wireless technology in a real-world setting. An additional $35M will be contributed by companies such as Verizon and Samsung. While 5G has been very much hyped, assessors would suggest that it is still far off.

The Advanced Wireless Research Initiative will be led by the National Science Foundation (NSF). To form a basis for its research, the NSF is spending $50m over the next five years to design and build four city-wide advanced wireless testing platforms. Each platform will deploy a network of software-defined radio antennas. They will effectively mimic the cities' existing cellular networks, allowing academic researchers, entrepreneurs, and wireless companies to test and refine different technologies and software algorithms in a real-world setting. The NSF will choose four US cities in which to build the platforms through a competition.